Chapter 98 - Magical illusions

**Zaras pov**

I’m standing by the window in my great-grandmother’s room. She still hasn’t woken up and I haven’t found anything to help her in all the grimoires I’ve read. A feeling of worry gnaws at me, I know I’m in deep water and the danger of the situation I’m in. Maybe I shouldn’t have told Hope, but Wicka, my wolf felt safe with Luna and wanted us to inform her of our plans. Plans I forged throughout my life.
As a child, I listened to the stories around the fire just like everyone else. I was captivated by Aayla and Luna and their fight against the evil of the night. When my magic awakened and proved strong, I began to experiment. I wanted to find my own ways to fight against our enemies. Zandra taught me a lot too, she was strong, probably stronger than I could ever be. But she expressed her concern for me and my ways and once I caught her slipping into my subconsciousness while I slept. I didn’t tell her I knew, instead I learned to hide things I didn’t want her to find. That didn’t stop her from seeing other things I learned. Things she thought bordered on dark magic. Now as an adult, I know she was right. By my teenage years I had learned enough to strike terror into the strongest of wolves, those my age anyway. I could make them see things that weren’t there and one of the funniest things I learned was getting them to get lost on the way home from school, a way they should know blindfolded. I could even make them fall to the ground screaming in pain because they thought their brains were melting. I smile at the memory of the pranks. The old Alpha wasn’t too impressed though, and when Zandra couldn’t get me to stop and I sent Cathy on a detour of two hours that resulted in an encounter with a couple of rogues, he forbade me from visiting Great Falls again. Although it turned out the rogues were friendly.
My parents lived in the city just outside my mother’s pack. My father had always had a dream of his own pub that catered for all kinds, he was a kind spirit that way. He meant that it is not what you are born into that makes you good or evil, but how your soul is shaped as it grows. He believed that many souls were old and wise already at birth while others were new and impressionable. So he opened the pub in the town and named it after my mother. As it was easier to always be in place instead of commuting back and forth, we moved into an apartment on the upper floor. We had a good life. I learned a lot from the guests in the pub, there were all kinds. Wolves, vampires and witches. Those who didn’t behave had to feel my father’s magic and later mine too. We were respected by our customers and the problems were few. Zandra visited us regularly. I suspect it was a lot to keep track of my magic but also to teach me how strong light magic is and that it is preferable to dark.
I snuck in on her one night when she slept over and just like she did with me, I peered into her subconscious. What I found was heartbreaking. I repeated this several times and learned her history without her knowledge. In her absence I dreamed of it and somehow I lived it myself. When my parents died, I was left alone. Callum was now the new Alpha of Great Falls and while I might have been welcomed back, they were now strangers to me. My mother’s pack was no more familiar and contact with them was very sporadic and only when my magic was needed. Zandra was the only family I had left. On one of her last visits, I cut a lock of her hair and when I felt most alone I used it to follow her from a distance. I could spend a whole day with her without her knowing and it made me feel less alone. It was in this way that I found out that Ambrogio was on his way back. Aayla’s wolf spirit Luna was about to awaken. I followed the development with great interest but I had to be very careful. I know Zandra’s magic is stronger when Ambrogio is healthy which also could allow her to detect me. So I hid in places in her subconscious that she would rather not visit.
When I heard her plea to the gods to give Ambrogio a mate, the end of my lifelong plan was formed. Getting the spirits to lead him to my pub was easy, that he would be captivated by my appearance was a foregone conclusion. I had been living Zandra’s life in my dreams for years so I know what he wants. When he agreed to taste my blood, my net was thrown and he was the catch. I used the same spell I used to make the other kids imagine things when we were little to make him think I tasted like honey. Ambrogio is a very attractive and charming man so being with him was not difficult, I have suffered worse than that when I have wanted something. My body is such a small part of who I am, the superficial part that belongs to this superficial world..no more than flesh and blood, and exploiting it to get what I want doesn’t bother me. My true self is in my soul, in my magic. It is in that world that I live most of my life..it is in that world that I belong.
The hard part was keeping him captive, I had to make sure he was regularly exposed to my cells, through kisses, sex or blood, blood was preferred. He didn’t want to drink from me again though so I tried biting my cheek when we kissed or putting a few drops in his cup if he was drinking from a tapper. But his obsession with Zandra made him very resilient and a kiss could subside in mere minutes if she was on his mind. When I visited him, I was about to reveal myself several times, my hatred for him and his kind permeated all of me and I fought hard so that he would not notice anything. Then everything changed, the rescue of Hope would be accelerated. I tried to get him to desist, it would have been better if he stayed with me so I could continue to weaken the stone around his heart, I know I’m very close. That was my plan, to make him mortal and then take him to Zandra and Luna, let them get their revenge..finally.
I take my place again at Zandra’s side. I have tried several times to get into her consciousness to try to wake her up that way, but everything is just black, cold and empty. I’ve tried to feel Ambrogio through her too, tried to tap into their connection..but it’s like standing at a precipice, a cliff..where the former path has been swallowed by the darkness below. I place healing crystals on her chest and on the pillow around her head. I relax my whole body before I start to chant all the healing rhymes I can think of, hoping to reach the source of her magic and help it heal her.
“You will kill her..is that what you want? Is the price of Ambrogio’s death worth the sacrifice of her life?” Hope’s words replay in my head and I feel tears burn inside my eyelids. Somewhere inside I knew it, I had never looked into it properly but I suspected their life forces were connected.
“Of course not..I love her, I always have..that’s why I want to give her this gift..not only her, Luna too..They’ve spent centuries trying to kill him and now there’s almost a way.” I tried to explain it from my end in as calm a voice as I could muster.
“It’s a gift I don’t want Zara..Luna doesn’t want it because it would take Zandra away from us” Hopes voice is fill of frustration and I understand her.
“It will be her choice to make, not mine, not yours and not Lunas..hers.” I look at my great grandmother on the bed. I never want to lose her but if she herself would choose to give her life for Ambrogio to finally lose his..then she would have my blessing and my help.